Why the Connected Life Is Further Away Than You Might Think

I think it might take longer than expected for the Internet of Things and connected homes to become mainstream.

Perhaps the biggest trend in consumer electronics this year is that anything that can be connected, will be connected. Everywhere you looked at this year's International CES show, you saw some other device for your home or your business that is now going to be available with a sensor, a small amount of processing, and connectivity—typically either via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. Most people are calling this the Internet of Things (IoT), though companies like Cisco and Qualcomm prefer the "Internet of Everything," and Intel prefers to call it "intelligence everywhere." But whatever you call it, the move towards connected devices seems inevitable.

But my guess is that it will take a lot longer for most of these technologies to become mainstream than backers expect and that there will be more problems and roadblocks along the way than we can foresee. After all, talk about the "smart house" and "home automation" goes back at least 40 years to when the X10 protocol was first developed. But this time it does seem like both the technology and the industry are aligned to make connected products a reality.

In many respects, it's the emergence of new processor technology and new standards that makes this generation of connected devices possible. Thanks to the continuing progression of chip-making technology, a manufacturer can now add a processor with a surprising amount of processing power that is small, uses relatively little power, and comes at a relatively small cost. The same concept has brought down the price of sensors, aided by the huge volume of sensors now going into things like smartphones. Similar technologies are making connectivity—through LTE, Wi-Fi, and especially the Bluetooth Smart (originally Bluetooth Low Energy)—equally easy to add to a design. It's all pretty amazing, and you can see the results in all sorts of connected devices.

The amount of processing power the devices need depends on what you're trying to build. Technologies like Arduino and Raspberry Pi show how easy it is for someone with moderate skills to create custom hardware, typically using simple processors. Now, more and more chipmakers are creating chips really targeted at this market; many based on the ARM instruction set. These chips are typically less powerful than the application processors that go in phones but still pack more processing power than a PC had 20 years ago and run on a fraction of the power. Not wanting to miss out on the market, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich has pushed a small chip known as Quark and a development system known as Galileo, and then at CES this year, introduced an even smaller button-sized module named Curie, due to be delivered at the end of the year.

In his keynote, Krzanich showed a variety of "intelligence everywhere" projects, from door locks to robotics and drones, and talked about how 2015 was the beginning of "a new technology wave" like we haven't seen for 20 years.

In his CES keynote, Samsung Consumer Electronics CEO BK Yoon had a similar message saying "The Internet of Things is ready to go," and this will transform our economy, society, and how we live our lives. He pointed to a future of connected devices that actively support and protect us, without people having to actually push buttons. On the product side, he talked about adding smarts to most of Samsung's products, suggesting 90 percent of all Samsung's products would be Internet of Things devices by 2017 (including smart TVs and mobile devices). Then he called for an open platform that will allow all these devices to connect and pushed the companies to support Samsung's SmartThings platform.

All of this sounds great, and the concept is right. But to me, there are still big issues that need to resolve.

The first is cost. Most of the new smart devices look great, but even though the costs of sensors, processors, and connectivity have gone down, they are still relatively expensive for many of these categories. After all, you can buy a nice toothbrush for a couple of dollars; connected ones cost over $100.

Then there is technology. Processor technology has come a long way but still has a ways to go before it's really ready for very small devices. Smartphone processors are very powerful and highly integrated but use a lot of power. Tiny microcontrollers don't use much power, but they don't deliver a lot of features or performance. Over the next couple of years, I expect we'll see more and more processors specifically designed for the "Internet of Things," taking advantage of new technologies to deliver more performance for less power.

Then there's the issue of making the devices work together. Here the issue is that everyone wants to be in control. I must have seen a dozen "open" platforms for connecting smart devices in the home. Samsung has its SmartThings platform via partnerships with Netgear, Philips, and Honeywell. LG is pushing WebOS as a method of connecting devices. And there must be at least half a dozen startups with ideas for creating a platform for controlling multiple smart devices, from Oort and Avi-On.

At a lower level, there are two competing larger standards groups aimed at making these devices talk to each other at a lower level: Intel, Samsung, Broadcom, and others have the Open Interconnect Consortium and its IoTivity software framework, while Qualcomm leads the AllSeen Alliance, which now includes LG, Sharp, Sony, and Panasonic, with its AllJoyn platform. Too many "open" competing "standards" isn't much better than vendor proprietary technologies.

Finally, we come to the interrelated issues of privacy and security. Do we really want hundreds of devices all keeping track of everything we do? And if so, who do we share this information with, and how do we prevent malicious people from getting hold of the data, or from taking control of our devices? People are afraid of things like malware taking control of Internet-connected cameras and household appliances.

All of these are issues that will take time to work through, and as a result, I don't think I'm going to go home a year from now and find everything is connected. But I do expect steady progress in all of these areas and that we all will be slowly acquiring more and more smart connected devices. A decade or so from now, the "smart home" is likely to be fairly commonplace, but there will be a lot of fits and starts between now and then.

There were practical things, such as connected light bulbs, and other parts of the smart home, offered by many different companies.

And some of the smart clothing seems silly, but others have practical advantages for emergency responders or athletes.

Similarly, I'm not sure we need all the products aimed at digital health, but I can certainly see the advantages of being able to track blood sugar for diabetics or heart rate and/or blood pressure for people with diagnosed medical conditions.

How about a baby thermometer? Blue Spark's TempTraq uses a patch you place under your child's arm, so you can monitor his or her temperature continuously on your smartphone if the child has a fever. I can see where that might make parents more comfortable.

Televisions, of course, are often connected now with "smart TVs" using Wi-Fi to access over-the-top video streams such as Netflix. And it seemed like all the car companies from Ford to Mercedes were at the show touting their connected capabilities.

In short, if you can put a sensor in it, it was probably on display at CES this year.

So it seems like everything will be connected, some things sooner than later. But how these devices talk to each other, how they fit together, how consumers react, and how much control we have of our individual data remain questions that still need to be addressed.

Michael J. Miller's Forward Thinking Blog: forwardthinking.pcmag.com
Michael J. Miller is chief information officer at Ziff Brothers Investments, a private investment firm. From 1991 to 2005, Miller was editor-in-chief of PC Magazine, responsible for the editorial direction, quality and presentation of the world's largest computer publication.
Until late 2006, Miller was the Chief Content Officer for Ziff Davis Media, responsible for overseeing the editorial positions of Ziff Davis's magazines, websites, and events. As Editorial Director for Ziff Davis Publishing since 1997, Miller took an active role in...
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